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Tuesday, 26 August 2014

I was a bit bemused by Richard Littlejohn's column in today's Daily Mail:

How many times have we seen young Asian men with backpacks pass seamlessly through security while Howard and Hilda from Hemel Hempstead are forced to stand and watch as the contents of their hand-luggage are examined with forensic precision?

Ooh, the cliches.

Having flown several times, I can tell you the number of times I have seen "young Asian men with backpacks" (define Asian please. Russian? Chinese? Indian? Arab?) walk through airport security whilst elderly couples have their hand luggage examined with forensic precision.

None. Nil. Nada. Zilch.

Anyway, if Howard and Hilda have nothing to hide, then they have nothing to fear.

I notice something about those who loudly call for more authoritarian measures, always with the "if you have nothing to hide, you have nothing to fear" argument that is designed to shut down any libertarian reasoning using the ad hominem logic - if you don't support a toughening up of security, then clearly you are a bad person who is worried that something will come to light.

And that is that it seems fine that any new powers the police might get are used against people who "look a little bit Muslim" or are anything "different". But when they get used against people who are decent, respectable, white, i.e. "like us", then it's wrong.